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What is ‘Buy Wise Be Safe’?

Essential advice on making an informed purchase on appropriate equipment for the under 5’s and its safe use.

It also fills an important gap in education and support made available to prospective parents and carers who need advice about what to look for, and promote its safe use, BEFORE buying expensive equipment – either second hand or new.

The Background

Each year approximately 55 children and young people die, 370,000 attend accident and emergency and 40,000 visit a hospital as an emergency (PHE report 2018 – Reducing unintentional injuries in and around the home among children under 5 years).

Buy Wise Be Safe (BWBS) aims to make an impact on injury reduction and prevention by providing clear advice to practitioners, carers and parents on what practicable steps can be taken in the home and elsewhere to ensure child safety.

Originally released in 2005, the BWBS project was aimed at just babies and toddlers, and was delivered extensively across the South West through a range of partners – initially using a video pack via Sure Start centres and in version 2 of the project BWBS used a DVD handed out by midwives at the first scan, as part of a ‘goodie’ bag for new parents.

The third version of BWBS has extended the advice in scope, to provide additional information in relation to injury prevention up to the age of under 5s, as well as babies and toddlers. To enable us to bring this project into the 21st century, the product is now delivered via the internet using interactive technology. The new website is segmented into five age brackets (babies, crawlers, toddlers, running free and school children), so parents can select the information that is relevant to them.

The site provides a number of factsheets and also hosts interactive exercises to engage and educate users. It will also be extensively promoted via social media, both as a means to evaluate the effectiveness of the product and to gather new information.

The website will also focus on the top five causes of unintentional injuries as defined in the PHE report 2018, namely: threat to breathing; strangulation; falls; poisoning; burns and scalds; strikes / crushes and jams.

There will be an abundance of new information made available, building on the historic materials which have been edited into bite sized chunks to help enhance the messages BWBS aims to deliver. Guides and advice on the purchase of second-hand equipment and buying over the internet will also feature.

Who’s involved in maintaining the resource?

The BWBS project team is a mixture of professionals from South West local authorities, Bristol Lifeskills centre, and Avonsafe. The group will maintain the product in the longer term ensuring the messaging is kept up to date and new materials are added over time.

Trading Standards South West is a partnership of 15 local authority trading standards services, who work together to maximize the benefits of regional collaboration and to enable each partner to be more effective in the delivery of locally responsive services.

Our common purpose is to promote a fair and safe trading environment to protect the interests of consumers and reputable businesses in south west England.

Avonsafe is a partnership formed in 1994 that works to improve the quality of life in the West of England.

We do this by helping individuals take control of the risk of injury in their lives, and by tackling risks of injury that are hard for individuals to control themselves. Avonsafe is steered by public health managers in Bristol, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset.

Bristol Lifeskills Centre – Lifeskills is an interactive safety education centre, built as a realistic village, which has been developed to teach people how to deal with potentially difficult or dangerous situations, whilst in a safe environment.

Lifeskills currently runs five different programmes which are specifically designed to educate Year 6 Primary school children (10-11 years), adults with learning difficulties, children with special educational needs, parents with young children and older people.

RoSPA – A registered charity that has been at the heart of accident prevention in the UK and around the world for almost 100 years.

More than 14,000 people die as a result of accidents across the UK each year. There are millions of other injuries. Accidents cause loss and suffering to the victims and their loved ones, employers and UK society as a whole.

We promote safety and the prevention of accidents at work, at leisure, on the road, in the home and through safety education.

How do I contact the site editor?

Please email editor@buywisebesafe.org.uk

I’ve bought something but I’m not happy with it as it doesn’t appear to be working as it should. What do I do?

It could be many things that have happened here. If the product require some assembly, it may have been difficult for you to put it together as the manufacturer intended. Your first step should be to not let your child use the item. If the product is faulty, or you are still unsure about your child using the item, you can always contact the place or person you bought it from. They should be able to assist you. If they still don’t, consider contacting your local Trading Standards team of Citizens Advice Bureau as they will be able to help you.